Just For Jewish Girls

Walk into the Saint Vincent College art gallery in Latrobe and the first thing you’ll see is a wall covered in brightly colored women’s panties.

Not the most common item on display at this small, staunchly Catholic institution, but peek a little closer — each pair is adorned with Hebrew text: shomer negia (don’t touch). Or, as artist and designer Maya Escobar explained, many interpret her panties as, “If you’ve gotten this far, you’re too far.”

The underwear is part of Tzit Tzit: Fiber Art and Jewish Identity, Saint Vincent’s new exhibition as assembled by guest curator and associate art professor Ben Schachter. The pieces included interpret the exhibition’s title both literally and metaphorically — tzit tzit as art, certainly, but also as a symbol of how Jews are bound together by material through tradition and practice.

“I wanted to make something like a ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bracelet but for young, Jewish girls,” said Escobar of her popular creation (they sell online at her Web site). “But why do people automatically assume it has to be a sexual message for men? It should be a halachic thing for women. Ideally, these aid in being shomer negia because they’re a reminder. They’re about individual sexuality for women.”